My last blog post focused on male sexual dysfunction and the desire continuum. In part II of this series we will be looking at issues that are related to male sexual arousal.

As the title implies, male sexual arousal is affected by bio-psycho-social elements and expectations.

Erectile dysfunction (ED), otherwise called male impotence, is defined by the inability to achieve and maintain an erection sufficient for satisfying sexual activity including, but not limited to, vaginal penetration.

What constitutes “sufficient satisfying sexual activity” is clearly a subjective concept. Thus, the first question we must ask ourselves is; what is satisfying sexual activity within our unique relationship? If there is frustration, which can lead to anger or sadness (hopelessness) and feelings of demasculinization, it is time to be proactive and seek help![Read more…]

To further educate mikveh attendants and the larger community about the challenges of disabled women at the mikveh, The Eden Center is collecting stories from women with a range of physical and emotional disabilities. Here is but one tale of a tovelet/turned attendant. Thank you Cher for sharing your story of challenge and contribution.

I have been disabled since I turned 19.

When I was in my first year of Stern College I started to experience some symptoms; my handwriting became illegible and my voice became a monotone. Within a few months, my right foot kicked my left ankle when I walked. One day I was in the kitchen helping my mother make a salad and she asked me a question. I literally couldn’t answer her. My lips were so tight they wouldn’t move.

At first I was diagnosed with “hysteria”. I knew I wasn’t crazy but no one could identify an illness. I married a wonderful man, figuring that if indeed it was hysteria a whole new life in a totally different place with different friends would surely snap me out of it, but- I was wrong. The symptoms persisted.

Two years later I was diagnosed with dystonia. I was so happy to have a name to my illness and to be able to say to myself and the world that they were wrong – it wasn’t in my head. However, dystonia is a very rare disease with no known cause and no known cure. It limited my speech and mobility to the point of me being unable to speak easily.[Read more…]

I used to love mikveh. In fact when I was getting married, the thing I was most excited for, more than anything else about the wedding, was to go to the mikveh. I could not wait to wash away the years of impurity from my body and prepare myself fully to commune with Hashem (and my husband). It was no less than I expected. Those warm waters washing over me like a wave of fresh air. I emerged from the mikveh a new person. I had been reborn. And I couldn’t wait to go back.

I only went back two more times when I could truly feel the mitzvah in its entirety. Enjoy the preparation. The separation. The counting down the days., I was doing a mitzvah all on my own and no one else knew. Just me, Hashem, my husband. A perfect little threesome. Our little secret. I would enjoy the day of mikveh as if it was my wedding day again. Pamper myself all day, take time off work, and prepare to feel that reconnection with myself and God that were so necessary for me and my husband to be close. Feel the waters. The rush. The swish. The holiness. The excitement. The bliss.

After the third time I got pregnant. The next 6 years I was either pregnant or nursing and only went to the mikveh a handful of times. And all the times I went I was so rushed, exhausted and totally out of my mind with baby brain that it’s a miracle I got there at all. But, I still loved it. I still loved the notion of cleansing the impurities from my life and starting over. A rebirth so real that sometimes I could literally feel the anger, frustration or any other trait I didn’t like, washing off of me like dirt. And I would come out, clean, pure and ready to try again. Ready to work with my husband once again at living holiness.

Then my husband was severely injured in a work accident. He entered into a state of constant pain. Our lives were changed forever. He slept almost constantly during those following years as it was the only thing that would stop the pain. I stopped nursing. Stopped being pregnant. Stopped the cycle of life entering our life and began the process of trying to stave off death. And for the first time in my life, began going to the mikveh on a regular monthly basis. This time, mikveh was a chore. Married to a husband in so much pain physically, spiritually and emotionally that he could have cared less if I went. In a situation in life where my only desire was to keep afloat. Every day survival, who can deal with this extra burden of having to fulfill mikveh when our life is so hard as it is? Busy? Beyond belief. Overwhelmed. Overburdened. Spiritually aching. How could I worry about doing bedikot, wearing white underwear and doing mikveh prep when I barely had time to sleep? But. I kept doing it. My husband didn’t care, he was in too much pain to even notice if I went. Mikveh was no longer a mitzvah for him. It was now a mitzvah purely for me. A true mitzvah. Ivdu et hashem b’simcha. Do our mitzvot with joy. At first I felt guilty, there was no joy left in this mitzvah for me. For almost a year I went and prayed and just kept begging Hashem to please let me get through going and the aftermath of my husband being asleep (as usual) when I came home. I davened that He would carry me through. See my desire to fulfill His will despite all else and maybe that, maybe that would be the merit we needed to return our lives to how they used to be. Maybe that would tip the scales. [Read more…]

It was my first day of graduate school and one of my professors asked us to go around the room and introduce ourselves and share what brought us to social work. We were a diverse bunch, each person with a different story about why they chose social work and what they hoped to contribute to the field. Most of us were female, in our 20s, and had started graduate school soon after finishing college.

After class was over, I got into conversation with Larry* ( not his real name), one of my new classmates. Larry had a really impressive story; he came back for a social work degree in his late 60s after a long career as a lawyer because, although he found much success in law, he felt a calling to give back to society in a different way and he decided to go back to school.

As we walked in stride, we traded impressions of our first day and the class we had just finished.

“Rachel, can I ask you something?”, he leaned in, lowering his voice to a confiding whisper. “I feel like I sounded really stupid in my introduction to the class….What did you think?”[Read more…]

Dr. Ilana Chertok recently articulated an active goal of The Eden Center. “In addition to Halakha (Jewish law) and Mesoret (tradition), culture influences many women in their attitude and practice regarding mikveh. As such, we need to develop an understanding and sensitivity to culture and its role in the mikveh experience.”

This blog certainly resonates as part of that work— to ensure that all cultures are embraced and understood at the mikveh to allow customs to remain and flourish.

Many women in Israel, regardless of their level of observance, come to the mikveh in their ninth month of pregnancy— a segula (practice) that is believed to make birth easier. This practice is especially common for women of Mizrachi/Sepharadi descent, but becoming more popular across the board.

This woman’s immersion evokes the idea of bringing tahara, purity and God’s presence, into the birth process. The living waters of the mikveh parallel the waters of the womb. By immersing, the woman unites the spiritual aspects of the mikveh waters, that symbolize being enwrapped by Torah and the Shekhina, with the physical nature of the womb and birthing process. Tevilla is therefore a very female way to bring Hashem into the process of preparing for labor.

Tevilla for a pregnant woman is a kabbalistic segula, not a halakha. Therefore, there are no specific rules about the procedure, and no special preparation is needed. There is no requirement to remove hatzitzot (physical barriers), though washing one’s body before entering makes it nicer for those coming after. Likewise, there is no bracha (blessing) to recite (as it is not a mitzvah).[Read more…]